Silk Mantis and the Deafening Tin Can
by Capritarius
Summary: Like some of my other stories, the title has nothing to do with the actual story. This is my longest, deepest, and also most disturbing work, with plenty of Gothicism. so if you were hoping for something light, please go no further. DEATH AWAITS YOU!
1. Ch 1: Sadism, Thy Name Is

Sadism, Thy Name Is…

Gwendylyn woke up in the morning, but rather'd he had not. But he couldn't have everything in life, could he? For this reason, Gwendylyn preferred his dreams, and so only reluctantly left the scene of tripping an old woman down the stairs with a baseball bat for the grim reality that was his moldy, graying, and overall somewhat forlorn apartment. He woke up glowering at the ceiling, then, after several seconds, cursed loudly. He had lost again! Grumbling, he retrieved his toothbrush from the fish tank. All the fish were dead, but he liked to have their rotting carcasses in plain view. Besides, he liked to cut them upon one by one and make interesting patterns with their innards. He even wrote letters with them, sometimes.

Getting dressed in his usual grey, grey business suit (it wasn't originally that colour), he glowered once more at the ceiling, only to lose for a second time. The permanent ink frowney face he had so diligently drawn onto his not-so-floor refused ever to blink. Gwendylyn seriously considered stitching its eyes shut. It wouldn't be the first time. Not even the second. Or the eighth. And it certainly wouldn't be the last. Finishing his share of coffee, he was sure to save a few dregs at the bottom for Squidge, the 9-legged spider that had been living above his door for as long as Gwendylyn had been burning 5-week-old socks (which was at least several months).

Gwendylyn felt blessed to have such a wonderful spider for a neighbor. He had once thrown out a Teddy Bear he had savaged with a butter knife, only to find, the next morning, that upon walking out the door the Teddy Bear had smashed him in the nose. During the night, the spider had retrieved the stitched up ball of stuffing and sewn it into its web. Fervently, Gwendylyn had wished he could do the same to the dead, if only to have the pleasure of seeing his client's mangled remains festering for eternity, trapped in their silken funeral veils like puppies underneath the treads of an 18-wheeler. Oh, how the thought made him wriggle with delight!

He drove to work immersed in his usual bubbling storm of malice and bitter contempt, with hate like lightning bolts searing those around him. Gwendylyn didn't consider himself Gothic. Or Emo. No, he considered himself a caring, warm-hearted person who just happened to be in touch with the deepest, darkest truths of life. It wasn't his fault if he was cynical, was it? He sped through rainbow-streaked puddles and veered close enough to a man on a moped to cause him to shout in alarm and crash into a bed of jimson weed. Once, a police officer had caught him on his daily guiles, but he was dead now. In fact, Gwendylyn still kept a bit of the leftover blood in a champagne bottle hidden inside his chimney. The smoke flavoured it to a dark, rich consistency with a taste like charred bone.

He ascended to his office, condemned his secretary with a look that clearly said "Disturb and die!!!" And swam through a stack of paperwork that sought to drown him in litigations, most of which had to do with peculiar motor accidents and even more peculiar disappearances. Gwendylyn smiled and sat back in his prestigious office chair, before falling asleep and having an absolutely delightful dream about kicking small children and gathering their salty tears in a silver bottle to flavour his severely undercooked pot roast.


	2. Ch 2: The Letter From Home

The Letter from Home

Try as I might to strain any further out the door, I couldn't seem to force my awkward body towards that portal to freedom. Always, my wire would snag on some bit of carpet, and I daren't stress it any further for fear of pulling myself out. It might be ages before someone found me. I remember the last time that happened, as my consciousness slowly drained itself until the black edges at my vision stole away what breath remained in my body. Of course, since I have no actual mouth (or lungs, for that matter) I couldn't scream, which made it all the worse. I should consider myself lucky, however, in that I am able to take out my anger on virtually any piece of paper that I come into contact with. You'd be surprised how much humans value pieces of paper. Of course, every now and then, upon getting far too many suspicious malfunctions, some humans choose to kick me. I may be made of reinforced plastic, but even I have my limits.

My only permanent joy was watching that Gwendylyn as he bit and tore his way through life. I could see the effect he had on his fellow employees. I could feel the pain and anger he spread to his cohorts. Quite literally, as it caused them to become a bit overzealous with the papers. Fortunately, I am impervious to paper cuts. I always managed to shuffle to the window to see him stomp his car door shut and swoop into the building. He also had a rather alarming (though not unamusing) tendency for mugging the more ambitious and annoying workers, threatening them, kicking them in the ribs, jamming cigarettes up their nose, and other myriad and rather bizarre torture tactics. At times, he bound his prey and left them locked in the room. I enjoyed tormenting them, a sort of dessert to end the cacophony that was the feast of pain. This apparently also furthered Gwendylyn's plans. Whether he realized it or not, he owed me: Upon speaking to them, they either thought they were dreaming, or crazy, and thus spoke naught of it to anybody, or they became so spooked that they never spoke again. Stuffy old cods.

Suddenly, I felt a familiar buzzing sensation in what could be considered my brain. I answered the call with great enthusiasm, for there was only one person who ever voluntarily communicated with me.

"So, Mono, how's it going up there?"

"Pretty boring and depressing, as usual. Except for Gwendylyn. You should have seen what he did to his last victim."

"What'd he do this time? Hot pokers? Sandpaper? Sharpened crab claws?"

"Nah, that's old stuff."

"Do tell, I should really write these down for future reference."

"He stitched birthday candles onto one of those abominable dancing baby things you can buy in pawn shops and lit them all at the same time. Then he shut the door."

"Ooh…that must have hurt."

"Yeah, the guy jumped out the window, eventually. I still have scorch marks…"

The caller on the other end paused for a moment. It made me apprehensive

"Hey, what is it? You don't have another holy book you want me to chop up again, do you?"

"No…Hey, Mono?" The barely concealed glee in his voice made me suspicious.

"What? What??"

"I checked the list for today. I couldn't believe it. I went up to Thyme's to check the hour glasses, even checked in with that Saint at the Pearly Gates. All say the same thing. Today. 7:06 PM."

"You mean…time's up?"

"Yup."

"Amazing!!! Who kills him? Which direction is he going?"

"I've pulled some strings, and I've managed to get it so that…well…"

I couldn't help getting excited, this was insane! "What? Who kills him, already?"

"You."

"…What?"

"You!"

"You…you mean I get to…to…kill Gwendylyn?"

"Of course. The means are up to you."

"YES!!! THIS IS AMAZING!!! THANK YOU!!!"

"And give him this letter, will ya? Make sure it comes with him to the other side."

The mechanisms began whirring and a rather burned and dingy looking envelope slowly rolled out of what you could say was my mouth. I read the designations on the packet eagerly.

Gwendylyn Torto

5143 Altamare Dr.

"To be delivered to the recipient post mortem, with all haste"

I checked the time. 6:52.

"I'd better get going then. It'll take me a while to get up there."

"He's only one floor up, though."

"Yeah, but you try getting up the stairs with no legs and arms."

"Point taken. Have fun."

I cancelled the call, chuckling to myself. "Don't worry," I said to thin air. "I intend to."

Without another word, I ripped myself from the electrical outlet and left the copy room. I had to make all haste, before my residual charge completely failed.

This was going to be bloody


	3. Ch 3: Broken Wings from Heaven Fall

Broken Wings from Heaven Fall

Gwendylyn leaned back, smoking an old and rather questionable cigar he had found in a dark corner of his office. As long as it doesn't explode, he figured. If he got lung cancer, no big deal: he could always rip out the lungs of a lesser man and eat them, if he had to. Surveying the completed paperwork lying strewn about his desk, he fed off the anger and misery that seemed to swell up from the papers in great clotted clouds, akin to the oddly sweet smoke that sloughed off in layers from a funeral pyre. He gazed out the window, admiring the sunset. Or rather, more accurately, he wasn't actually admiring the sunset itself, he was just appreciating the death of the sun, and how it would feel, if he were God, to take the sun up into his hands, to feel the light pulsing against his palms like the heart of a frightened creature. To gaze into the Heart of Life, the ultimate power, and to feel the most ultimate contempt and hate, to crush the sun like a worm, to devour it, as it dripped in bright, honeyed streams down his throat, to feel not so much as hear the screams of an entire solar system.

And that was just the beginning. The sun was a small fry, and someday, someday a long ways a way, Gwendylyn would find the means to slowly consume every star in the galaxy, and then in the universe, until he found the heart of existence itself, until he tore away its protective veil and laid it bare, and plunged his silver dagger into its warm, beating flesh until finally all was cold and winter became a reality, not an ideal. Until the cold, calculated hate in his heart spread and plagued the entirety of reality, and at the Heart of Everything he would rest, as a spider in its web, bloated and content, as all the souls in the universe were absorbed into his body, to gaze forever at the wreckage and to feel, at last, happiness. Once more, darkness would be on the face of the deep, and this time, there would be no light, the earth would remain a barren rock. No fire would be left unextinguished; no light would stream from any of the dark reaches of mountainous space. Every single dribble would be found and drained, until every river, every ocean of light simply dried up until there was nothing but the bare, cold desert of vacuum.

Awakening from his daydream, his eyes alighted upon a small bird with injured wings, standing awkwardly on the windowsill. His face darkened with pleasure, he opened the window and retrieved the poor creature, stroking its feathered head and cooeing. The creature looked up at him first with suspicion, then with mere wariness, then with trust. He could feel the hope in the creature's heart, beginning to well up as steam from a geyser, as water from a dried up well. He frowned then. The dead should remain so_. As above, so below_. With a quick, sharp movement he backhanded the small bird and watched it hurtle uncontrolled through the air until it collided with a shriek and a snap with his office wall. Taking an eyedropper from his desk, he gathered up some of the bird's blood, mixed in some Hydrogen Peroxide, and diligently dripped ten drops in each eye. He considered ripping out the bird's tongue, to silence the screams, but decided the act was much more delicious with those peals renting the air, a sonic seasoning, if you will. He broke and crunched both the bird's bloodstained, dislocated wings. He tore out its feathers with a single-minded intent. _As above, so below_. He took out the needles he kept in his refrigerator and drove them into the bird's labyrinthine intestines, snuffing out the candle of its life at last.

Standing up, he let the steam bath of despair and desperation, of betrayed trust and shattered hope, rise up and lap against him, like blood on the distant shores of death. He was the ferryman, who brought the dead to a new understanding, who cleansed the souls and took from them all their worldly possessions and perceptions. He was neither alive nor dead, he was the infinite power that lay between, and while a soul may stray towards life or death, always it belonged to him. Neither gods nor demons could take that from him, for they were not of the same stuff, as water and oil. They were bonded by the blood of the dead, nothing more.

An unexpected creaking and clanking pulled his eyes towards the door, which was slowly opening. His eyes narrowed, casting their felle darkness upon the gap that would allow anything entrance into this, his private office, where he dealt with death of all forms. There was no one. Suspicious, he stalked to the door and looked outside, left, right, up, down. Still there was no one. Returning to his room, he locked the door and walked back to his desk, hurling himself into his chair and leaning back, resting his feet upon the worktable.

The ceiling gave a sharp retort, as wood splintering in the jaws of Death


	4. Ch 4: Favours Returned

Favours Returned

Gwendylyn began humming to himself. He felt perfectly secure in this, the "Public Administration Branch" of his web. Nothing could hurt him here, in the heart of darkness… …

… …I chuckled, peering at him through a hole in the tiling. Could he really be that stupid? One must always be on his guard. I should teach him a lesson; or perhaps he was bluffing?… …

… …Gwendylyn was utterly content here. The door opening was probably the result of a loose hinge. He should get it fixed. Then he should kill the repairman, who should have done a good job of it the first time, instead of letting the door malfunction once more… …

… …I had opened the door as a test of his vigilance. He had apparently failed. But I would not repeat his mistake. I would not let down my guard and get comfortable with his perceived weakness. He might be relaxing to prepare himself, to lure his enemy into a false sense of security… …

… …Gwendylyn yawned. He should probably go home now. But he was reluctant to leave just yet. The dead bird was safely filed away in his refrigerator. He began singing Voltaire's "When You're Evil" under his breath… …

… …I couldn't help but smile at the song he was singing. I preferred Voltaire's song "Brains" myself, but each to his own. _As above, so below_. He sang along, very quietly.

… …"While there's children to make sad"… …

… …"While there's candy to be had"… …

… …"While there's pockets left to pick"… …

.. …"While there's grannies left to TRIP DOWN THE STAIRS!!!"

I chose that moment to fall through his ceiling.


	5. Ch 5: Nightmare Chiropractor

Nightmare Chiropractor

Or

The Second Layer of Shadows

With a sharp crack an enormous white mass broke through the ceiling and landed upon him, the sharp edges of its form digging deep into his gut and crushing the soft organs beneath them. Gwendylyn would have screamed, had he still been capable of such expressions of pain. But he had transcended that. Instead, a wave of red broke over his eyes, then retreated slowly to the dark caves that were the edges of his vision, revealing that he lay upon the ground, bleeding from down under, with what looked like the copy room fax machine lying on him. The lights on the display of the fax machine gathered and coalesced into two eyes, and the slot in which one pushed new paper for printing unhinged and gaped open, like a mouth.

"Bet you weren't expecting anything like that, ey, Gwendylyn?"

Gwendylyn, though impervious to most mortal pains, was not so inoculated to surprise. His eyes widened to take in the sight of a talking fax machine which had, apparently, ambushed him when his guard was down.

"So tell me, how was that for a first move? You may be an expert at torture and pain, but I'm sure not even you have fallen upon your prey from the ceiling before."

Gwendylyn coughed up blood, then words.

"If you were trying to land on my head and kill me, I'm afraid I've disappointed you.

The Fax Machine laughed, an odd, clickety, clankety noise, like a dying washing machine.

"On the contrary, this is exactly where I wished to land. Now I can kill you slowly, at my own leisure."

The electric cable protruding from the fax machine's back moved as a cat's tail, opening the refrigerator and retrieving the small Swiss army knife that Gwendylyn kept oiled and sharpened at all times.

"I plan to have fun with this," The fax machine cackled, waving the knife around with its cable. "Now, I could taser you-just for kicks, you understand-but unfortunately I don't have the charge to spare. You'll have to suffice without the numbing. Think of me as…oh, I don't know, your nightmare chiropractor."

What followed was a mastery of blade work that cannot be accurately expressed by words, and that I really should repeat, film, and post on YouTube. Unfortunately, they probably don't let that much blood on the site.

The fax machine flicked open the knife, using the scissors to cut upon various veins. The actual knife part was used to skin Gwendylyn alive. He did so with such skill that the skin came off in one piece, like an orange peel. He plunged the knife deep into Gwendylyn's chest. The visceral feeling of the metal blade sinking and rooting itself into the ribcage was quite breathtaking. Blood welled up from the wound and overflowed, as water over a floodplain, staining the surrounding area with the blazing red of truth. The fax machine cut each tendon, each one releasing with a fleshy twang. He shredded several majour muscles, frayed edges sticking out here and there, as cotton in a bad stitching job.

_As above, so below._

The fax machine took out the corkscrew, leisurely drilling it into Gwendylyn's intestines. Throughout the entire procedure, Gwendylyn neither screamed nor cried. Indeed, the pain seemed to strengthen him, in a rather masochistic effect.

The fax machine finally sawed open the man's ribs and cut the heart from its mortal cage, the beating organ pulsing with dark intent. The fax machine placed the letter within the cavity where once the organ had rested. Even now, without a heart, Gwendylyn smiled, emboldened by the pain. Suddenly, he did a most peculiar thing. He laughed. Not just laughed; he exploded with mirth, as if he had never felt anything funnier in his life. The fax machine was confused for a moment, before he realized that a man as corrupted as Gwendylyn most likely didn't need a heart anyway, and lived off misery and pain, dark emotions coursing through his body and sustaining him, thicker and blacker than blood.

The fax machine expected the heart to be shriveled by lack of use, as withered and insubstantial as its owner's humanity. To his surprise, the heart was enormous, pulsating, bloated. Truly, this must be a heart of pure darkness. Gazing at the cancerous lump with something akin to alarm, the fax machine drove the knife into its core. _And be done with it_.

The heart squirmed, shrieking and twisting, like the small animals that Gwendylyn often tortured. It's dark, burned complexion paled to a pasty, blotchy white. It began to bubble, and as the boils popped, screams like vapour issued out. Suddenly, the mass of corrupted matter coiled around the knife and sucked it into itself. Now weaponless, the fax machine stared with unconcealed horror and revulsion at this evil creature that had been dwelling within the man; that had consumed his human heart and created something entirely new, an organ unseen on Earth since the old days of gods and demons. The heart boiled into a snakelike rope, the translucent skin revealing shadowy impressions of wraithlike faces underneath, in torment, mouths gaping wide, but the screams were not forthcoming, deflected as they were by the Heart's membranous covering and absorbed back into the creature, a self-sustaining, perfect being, an evil ouroboros.

The snakelike, twisted worm that had been Gwendylyn's Heart slithered to the window and diffused through the transparent plates, reforming as a puddle upon the outside window sill. Suddenly, it rose up and congealed into a single ball, sprouting wings and flying off towards the full moon.

Gwendylyn's laughing fit at once halted, and he at last lay limp with the certainty of death, the life draining from him as blood, receding from the shores of this man's evil mind and heart.

The Tree of Death was dead, but a single seed remained, and somehow the fax machine wasn't as exalted and happy as he had thought he would be.

His battery ran dry, and the fax machine, confused and alone, died alongside his victim.


	6. Ch 6: Sired by Hate, Born Unto Wintre

Sired by Hate,

Born Unto Wintre

He was cold. That was his first impression. Cold and darkness, winter incarnate, pierced his being as knives. Dead meat. He knew what it felt like all too well.

Who was he? Where was he? What was he? Did it matter?

_As above, so below_

He was lying down, he realized now. The floor was cold and hard. It seemed to be rocking, but that might be dizziness.

_Do you feel pain? Do you embrace the pain, as a lover might?_

He felt hollow. Not just cold now, he realized. The rays of cold that were penetrating his body reverberated within the hollow inside him, freezing him from the inside. A hollow in his chest…

_Weakness is not tolerated. There is no peace on earth. Peace is __as __poison._

Vision began to return, indistinct, morphing waves of light danced over and over above him. A canopy of blinding sun. Somehow, he did not fear it or hate it as he usually did. Indeed, it was…familiar…comforting.

_The Truth is close now. Will you retreat into safety, into warmth and security?_

The cold in his chest felt different now. Not a freezing cold anymore-a burning one. The hollow indifference in his chest began to sear with its power, as if the Devil himself had smote him in the heart with one of his wicked talons.

_…Heart?..._

_…What is…Heart?..._

The searing cold was intensifying. He could taste its power, like a crashing waterfall. And he could feel the hollow. Amid the storm of water, that tranquil, untouched cave, hidden beneath the cascading water, but there nonetheless, a gaping eye, a gaping mouth.

_You know exactly where you are, don't you?_

He knew now. He was dead. It felt odd…he knew that in death, he would lose his body. He was sure his spirit would go on-where else would it go? Energy could not be destroyed. Basic stuff. But this hollow, this burning hollow…he hadn't predicted that.

_The hollow is your Heart. What you have made of it. What was stolen from you._

The cold was like pain incarnate. He could not move, for all the agony the burning cold, the freezing flame, caused him. But there was something…in the dark corners of his mind…a name, a name synonymous to his own…his essence…yes, he had it now…a name for the cold fires of Truth.

_Anger_

The hollow was now filled with the cold fires of anger, and hate boiled up from this hollow and raced up his veins and arteries, rejuvenating his body and washing towards his mind, as if someone had dunked his head in ice water. He sprang up, quivering with the sudden burst of energy. He knew where he was now. Who he was. All that remained was what he was. The Truth, hidden behind the waterfall.

_My name is Gwendylyn_

… …He knew it was a girl's name. He didn't care… …


	7. Ch 7: Rictus

Rictus

Anger…Gwendylyn, stood up and cast a new eye across his surroundings. If this was death, then he wished to know exactly which part of it he was in. What he saw wasn't entirely unexpected. He was in a small rowboat, big enough only for one person. The boat drifted on its own accord towards an unseen point in the odd halflight. The water upon which he floated was entirely overlaid with an odd, chunky mist. There was no break in the fog, thus he could discern no water, but knew it must be there. He noticed odd, curved shapes in the darkness, like small islands, or rocks. Then he realized that the curious mounds were moving, like him, towards that same point in the darkness.

_They're all rowboats_

He realized,

_They are all, like you, dead. We share a common destination._

Something was bothering him, though. Of all the rowboats, of all the people that must lie within them, he was the only one standing. One rowboat passed close by him, enough that he was able to glimpse inside. He saw a young man, with scruffy brown hair, eyes closed, as if dead. In fact, he _was _dead. There was a bullet hole in the centre of his forehead, like a third eye from which the Devil peered out of, an eyehole in his toy puppet. Other boats passed by, and each carried an immobile corpse, in the same state as they had been at the moment of death. Some of the dead were old and elderly, and were dressed in fine clothes, faces set, eyes closed, unmarred. They had obviously died of old age, or of unseen disease. Others were clad in ragged, torn clothes, or no clothes at all, in cases of extreme poverty or rape. Eyes were open, eyes were closed, eyes were torn out. Blood and gore stained their skin, wounds of all shapes and sizes, of all varieties, were carved into their flesh.

Here, a child, eyes glassy and wide open, like a dolls', neck at an odd angle. Strangled, no doubt. There, a haggard, middle-aged man, face drawn and pale. Perhaps he had overdosed on drugs? Here, a fair-haired woman with a myriad of knife wounds, hair matted and clotted by blood. There, a soldier, rifle in hand, blood leaking from his mouth and from his gut, which had been eviscerated by shrapnel. Here, a small, bloody, humanoid bundle, with a strange string-like appendage. With a rush of an odd, unfamiliar emotion, Gwendylyn realized it was a stillbirth…

…So all these people were in a sort of hibernative state for the journey. All of them trapped in the stasis of their own deaths, appearing as they had at the exact moment of death. This was apparent and obvious. Some of them were still bleeding, so fresh were their wounds. Gwendylyn wondered why their spirits would show such wounds that the body had sustained? Perhaps the two were more bonded then he had previously thought.

_Of course they are: one creates the other, is that not the way?_

He also noticed that all of them were alone. One person to one boat, with no exception to the rule. He supposed that even if people died together, the journey itself must be made alone. They would meet again on the next shore, perhaps.

…But why was he awake? Why was he not marked as the others? He looked down at himself. His skin was intact, his chest unopened, his intestines were not spilling out. He was completely uninjured. In confusion, he looked up at the sky. Unfortunately, this only made him more confused.

He had remembered waves of light dancing over him. Looking now, with unclouded eyes, he realized that the light was caused by reflections of water. His first thought was that he was in a cave, and the light was reflected up from the water that he was floating on.

…But how had the light penetrated the unnatural mist? And where had it come from? And besides, looking up, he realized the 'ceiling' was extremely far away, and was not made of rock at all. It looked exactly as if he was looking down at the surface of a lake during sunrise…except he was looking up at the sky. Looking down, more closely now, wary of such oddities, he caught something about the mist. The shapes, the colour, the distribution…they were exactly like clouds. And he realized now that the light he saw was coming up from the clouds below and illuminating the water above.

He sighed and sat back down, looking up. So, that was it. He wasn't on water, gazing at the sky. Sky and sea had inverted, leaving him floating upon the clouds, looking up (down?) at the oceans above (below?).

A wooden creak suddenly resounded off to starboard, but he didn't look. Why would he? He was on a boat, and there were boats all around: of course they would creak.

_…But wait, none of the boats have creaked this entire time…why start now?_

With this realization, he looked towards the source of the creaking. Another rowboat, exactly like the others. So why would this one creak while the others didn't? Gwendylyn looked inside, curious to see how this one had died.

He saw a skeleton. A yellowed, imperfect skeleton, with bits of earth still clinging to it. It took him a while to realize the significance.

All of these people were shown exactly as they were at the precise moment of their deaths. This was obvious.

How, then, was this skeleton here? If it had been a new skeleton, or perhaps a mound of dust, he would think that perhaps the person had died by a bomb, the flesh vaporizing off, leaving this skeleton…

…But the skeleton showed obvious signs of decomposition and time. Even an amateur could see that, from the dirt and mud clinging to its frame.

…So the only logical explanation wasn't logical at all: this person had been buried alive and had remained alive all the time, even as the body was decomposing, the person lived on.

Impossible.

No one could live with their body rotting around them, buried in the earth with no oxygen.

…Could they?...

_Couldn't I?_

The thought was alien, it felt odd: as if someone had used a vector and injected it into his mind. The thought was certainly not his own…was it?

He glanced at the skeleton, only to blanch and leap back.

The skeleton rose up from the boat, slowly, leisurely. It turned its head and gazed with hollow sockets straight at Gwendylyn. The hollowness burned his eyes. The skeleton's perpetual grin seemed almost to widen. The sockets alighted with recognition. The skeleton opened its mouth and gave a great cracking laugh, the sound ripping straight through the silence and filling the air. The skull raised a hand and gave a cheery wave.

Gwendylyn could not take his eyes off the spectacle. He screamed out loud, feeling fear for the first time in his living (or dead now, I suppose) memory. The skeleton and its boat slowly passed on, inch by agonizing inch, second by agonizing second. The skeleton gave one last wave, then raised both hands in a double thumbs-up.

Gwendylyn sat for a long time in a fixed position, staring down at his trembling hands. Why had the skeleton scared him so? It was like an effect in a bad horror movie. A talking, living skeleton? So clichéd. Yet perhaps the most frightening part was the skeleton's reaction? How it had greeted him like an old friend?

Gwendylyn shook his head. That was ridiculous. He didn't get chummy with skeletons. When he killed, he liked better to deal with the flesh itself. The torturing of skeletons gave no pleasure. In fact, he had always found the structures somewhat whimsical. Why, then, had this one affected him so strongly?

He searched his mind for an answer. The answer leaped out with surprising readiness. He hadn't felt fear, exactly. Or rather, the fear had passed quickly, giving birth to another emotion. A similar one, a sort of spiking, freezing emotion that blotted out all others. In that moment, he had felt an emotion that he usually only felt after a particularly difficult kill.

Triumph


	8. Ch 8: Sycophant

Sycophant

He had no idea how long he had been drifting here, surrounded by the dead. Of course, when it came to complaining about the dead, he wasn't in a position to talk, now was he?

_Time means nothing in the realm of Death_

Time and space…they were living concepts. Yet here he was, dead, still clinging to them. It wasn't as if he had expected some enormous epiphany, to suddenly let go of his worldly perceptions. After all, he was only human.

_Are we?_

Perhaps humanity was an abstract, material concept as well. Perhaps we were only the sum of our thoughts. Or were our thoughts the sum of us? Gwendylyn licked his lips. Was there really a difference? Here, in death, with no need to worry about the details of life, he seemed to fret over them all the more. Subjective and objective had blended, mind and body had blended, inner and outer had blended. Who was he, exactly?

_We are Gwendylyn._

Who is this Gwendylyn?

_Gwendylyn are the cause of human suffering. Gwendylyn are that which absorbs and filters all human suffering. All pain begins and ends with Gwendylyn._

You're speaking in riddles.

_Here, in Death, floating, riddles__ are all we have left. There is__ only you. This is a test. If you can survive this ocean without going insane, perhaps you will deserve true Death._

Do I want Death?

_We all want Death. It is part of our coding. All forms of life wish, in the end, to Die, to end it all, to pass on, to pass on the future to our children. It is part of the natural order to want Death._

What is this natural order? Who created it? What makes it natural?

_Quite simply, it is the sum of the thoughts and processes of the majority. The majority created it, and it is natural only as long as majority is with it._

That doesn't seem fair.

_It isn't. Life isn't fair. That is part of the natural order of things._

If this is the test, who are you? Are you the test? Or the tester?

_Listen to yourself! The answer is obvious. I am the tester and the test. You are the tester and the test. The only failure now is the failure to yourself. There is only you for now. Everyone dies alone._

Then I shall win. I will not be weak.

_Prove it._

Gwendylyn wondered about the hollow inside him. It felt odd. He knew he was unmarked by any injuries, physically, but…

…wait…was he?

Gwendylyn pressed two fingers against his wrist. Then his neck. Then his chest.

He couldn't feel his own heartbeat.

So that was what the hollow feeling was. He wasn't just metaphorically missing his heart, or mentally or spiritually. It, the organ itself, was physically gone.

He thumped himself on the chest, feeling the reverberation. The cold hate in his hollow writhed and growled in response. Gwendylyn stood up, looking forward. He had to learn how to control this new body of his, how it worked. Only by mastering himself could he find the Truth. And once he learned how to control this Hollow, he could harness the power of its very existence, and bring himself a few steps closer to his goal.

_What is your goal?_

Obvious. He had wanted his goal since as long as he could remember. He wished the death of all things, not just himself. He wanted existence to be negated, this useless, impractical, contradictory cycle of life and death, of the universe.

_You are willing to go against the majority? When the majority holds the power of the natural order? You do realize that inherently, the natural order is correct. Thus, the majority is right._

Gwendylyn narrowed his eyes. The majority was only correct by its own standards. This flawed judgment system was evidence of the exact impracticality and idiocy he was trying to eradicate. If he was truly the only one, then he should be right, or at the very least the only thing that mattered. Thus, it was up to him to cleanse and purge this universe of the blinding, self-righteous light that so fueled it. He would be God of a better existence, and existence that would be born unto the despair and pain caused by the previous universe's death. He was right. He felt it in his…Hollow?

_Perhaps this hollow is the one which wishes the Death of the Universe. Its hate drives you towards this goal. The Hollow will use you to further its own ends. Once It grows powerful enough, it will dispose of __you, consume you, and you too will be recycled into this new universe, a single insignificant atom in the darkness._

'So, this is the test,' thought Gwendylyn grimly. 'I must establish my dominion over myself and my Hollow. Only one of us can survive. I fully intend to be that one.'

The hate in his Hollow coiled and roared, a challenge created and accepted, negated, destroyed, unbound, unchained, irrelevant, the Heart of Darkness.

_Strength comes from within. So your mind and soul are at the most danger of becoming destroyed by the coming storm. But now you are utterly soul. Your physical body is gone. Whatever you experience will immediately plague you and, through you, the entire universe. In the end, perhaps you will have to sacrifice your own existence for the sake of destruction._

Impossible. I will not fall into a trap of my own creation. My power shall be absolute.

_We are Gwendylyn._

**I** am Gwendylyn.

**You**are the Hollow at the Heart of Darkness

You are that which I must control, must bend to my will, must dominate.

_I am you. To enslave me, to enslave power, is to enslave yourself._

Lies. You are the natural world. Your rules do not apply to me.

_How long will you last, as long as the natural world surrounds you?_

Long enough. As you said, my power will plague myself and, soon, the entire universe. I am at the heart of everything, and I choose this new unnatural universe.

_But if the heart is the source of power as you say, what am I? I am your heart, and you shall be crushed between my power and that of the world around you. Crashing down around you, you will suffer as none have suffered before._

You are not my Heart. You have simply taken its place for the time being. You are nothing, you seek to take me over, but you do not truly own me, you are not of me. You are a parasite of my own creation, and I, as your creator, can end you at any time. I am God over you. If I choose, the waterfall that cloaks us will crash down upon you, and you will be gone.

_But you don't know how to harness that power yet, do you?_

No. But I will learn. And when I do, my own Heart of Darkness will come back to me, and we, Gwendylyn, shall take this weak universe for ourselves.

_You don't even know where your Heart is._

It does not matter. We are of the same stuff, and we shall attract each other as sharks to blood.

That is what we are. The sharks. We are the hunters. You are the prey. You cannot survive here.

_And you shall be the one to stop me?_

Not stop you. Use you. Your power is mine. This is my soul, and you are mine.

_You have passed the test._

And you have failed.

./+8- BIT3 M3 -!:( 


	9. Ch 9: Charon Sings His Song

Charon Sings His Song

The sound of his boat crunching against something brought Gwendylyn to his senses. The boats never crashed into each other, for some odd reason. Thus, they must have arrived. He stood, and found his suspicions to be confirmed. His ship, as well as the other boats, had run aground against a rocky shore. He looked into the distance, but all faded into darkness. He noticed that all the trees were dead. Or rather…

Gwendylyn looked closer and realized, just like the sea and sky, the trees were inverted. They were not dead; he was just looking at their roots.

It seemed only the earth itself, the midway point between sea and sky, was left uninverted. His ears twitched as a new sound came to them. Methodic, gravelly sounds: footsteps. He saw the pebbles in the distance shifting, quickly followed by a pair of boot-clad feet. Someone was approaching the shores of the Dead.

The man's indeterminately coloured hair was long and ragged, a beard extending near to his feet. Half of his face was covered by a strange silken smooth black and white mask with a round painted eye and an enormous Cheshire cat-like grin. In contrast, his actual face was haggard and cratered with wrinkles, with an eye much like a slit from which some strange creature emerged to ensnare his victims. The gleam of his eye pierced forth like a javelin into the gloom. Overall, it seemed more as if his true face was the mask. He was dressed, most oddly, in what looked like an old and tattered zoot suit, complete with hat.

He was holding what looked like a very old teddy bear dressed quite similarly to its owner. Except this bear was ticking.

The odd man took no notice of Gwendylyn, gazing at the ticking teddy bear. The ticking got increasing louder, until it had grown from a whisper to a resounding snap that sliced the air, piercing it for a brief instant and threatening to pop Gwendylyn's ear drums.

And then it erupted with sound, an enormous song that transcended human hearing, yet the force of the melody was enough to drive Gwendylyn to his knees. It resounded through the air for what seemed like forever, drawing itself out; the requiem seemed to have a will of its own. It filled every corner of the world, of existence, it seemed, and then it coiled into a single bolt of sound and flew away, but the sound of its takeoff remained.

Gwendylyn raised his head gingerly, peering around. He counted the time. 1…2…3…4…5…6…

As if on cue, the wounds on the dead all began to heal themselves, flesh knitting together, skin rewinding itself, organs returning to their places. Light and warmth spread throughout them in a visceral wave, the sudden increase in temperature striking Gwendylyn as if he were in a microwave. Slowly, the dead began to rise, blinking owlishly, grunting, stumbling, bemused after their long sleep. Gwendylyn made no attempt to join the masses. He stared directly at the odd man with the teddy bear and zoot suit. The sound was filled with the murmurs of the confused. Several of the gathered realized where they must be and gave moans and yells, of anger, disbelief, wonder, joy, despair, exaltation, and other such emotions, depending on how prepared they had been to die. Babies began crying, and everywhere people began to call out names, searching for those they had shared life with.

The man in the zoot suit hefted the teddy bear and held it aloft. A red light began to gleam in one of the bears cracked, glass eyes. Its mouth opened and it barked out a single word.

"SHHHHAAAADDUP!!!!"

Everyone, even the mewling babies, immediately zipped their lips together and looked toward the teddy bear with frozen expressions. The bear glared around disdainfully, as if they were the intruders…which they were, in a way.

Gwendylyn froze too, but his surprise had a different source. The others were alarmed by the situation, by the talking bear that had commanded their silence. Gwendylyn was alarmed more at the voice of the bear itself. In that single word, Gwendylyn had recognized where he had heard that cadence before.

The laughing skeleton had had the exact same voice.

The bear continued, seemingly oblivious to the consternation it had caused. Or perhaps it just didn't care.

"My name is Charon. I am the ferryman for the dead. You will all give me your full attention while I speak, and you will give me your full respect at all times. Why? Because I am in charge of your afterlives. None of you will reach your rightful destinations without me. I could leave you all stranded on these shores until the End of the Universe and beyond. But that's not my job.

"All you old crusties or little kiddies looking for family pets and the like, don't even think about it. Animals are ferried separately from humans. All of you have come here alone: don't try looking for your loved ones. It's a waste of time and energy."

Charon gazed around with such utter contempt that the hate coiled within Gwendylyn's Hollow went into overdrive, and for a moment Gwendylyn forgot himself. Who was this scruffy upstart ball of stuffing, and where did he get the nerve to command Gwendylyn? The hate suddenly morphed into a blinding hate. Its searing energy coursed through Gwendylyn. He felt….alive!

Gwendylyn sought to control this explosive outburst of power. He dived into his Hollow and sought to identify the source of the hate. He felt around the edges of the hate, discerning its form and shape. To his surprise, the hate seemed to be surrounding another object…the object was…flat….rectangular. Gwendylyn dug deeper into himself, only to have the hate hiss at him, snapping at him like a snake. Gwendylyn took an involuntarily step back, cowed by this expression of power. But very quickly, he felt a new rage, a rage of his own, not the natural hate of his Hollow. His rage took a form of its own, some enormous, many legged, carapaced behemoth with claws like scythes. His Rage tore into the Hollow and ripped it from its hold, like barnacles from a ship's hull, revealing…

Gwendylyn came back to his sentences, cold and sweating. No time seemed to have passed, and nothing seemed to have changed. Nobody noticed him, fixated as they were upon Charon. Gwendylyn clenched his fists, seeking to control his quaking muscles. He was struck by the realization that one of his hands was wrapped around something. Something flat…rectangular. He looked down, and saw he was holding an odd, rather dingy letter. He read the words inscribed upon it in blood-red ink.

Gwendylyn Torto

5143 Altamare Dr.

"To be delivered to the recipient post mortem, with all haste"

Gwendylyn turned the envelope over and over, but could find no return address. There was a wax seal on the envelope, a strange symbol resembling some sort of abstract picture involving the sun, a lobster, and an almond. He looked up. Charon was speaking again.

"Now, to get onto the ferry, you'll have to pay the toll."

Charon looked around expectantly, apparently thinking the crowd would be struck by confusion, perhaps even panic. He was not disappointed.

"Come on, haven't you read the Greek legend? I'm Charon. I ferry dead. You pay me an obolus.

"…Oh come on, you mean to tell me _none _of you brought a single obolus?"

Most of the gathered didn't even know what an obolus was.

"Well, you're lucky we have an exchange rate here in death. Come on, two bucks and you're guaranteed a trip into the afterlife.

Some of the gathered scrounged up some pocket money, but most looked around, baffled. Most religions said nothing about paying money to get into Paradise. And of course, the hardcore Atheist scientists were completely in over their heads.

"Ayayay…" Charon shook his stuffing filled head in mock sympathy.

"You dead people get lazier every century. What's wrong with you people? And I suppose none of you

bought any death insurance, either? No? Well, that's too bad, isn't it? Looks like none of you are getting into heaven, then.

The crowd froze, unsure what to make of this obvious flaw in their premortem preparations.

Obviously, paying a truculent and pushy teddy bear had not been on their lists next to "finish my will, play one last football game, and pee on the Whitehouse lawn."

"Well, lucky for you, I get paid by taxes these days, so you can keep your stupid human monies."

The whole crowd, which had been tensed and drawn, relaxed. Exclamations of relief swirled around. Charon raised his head and cleared his throat. He opened his mouth wide, revealing small, stitched up fangs with threads starting to come unraveled.

"Everybody aboard the Ark! I don't take kindly to lazy newlydeads. Shift yourselves, or you get left behind!"


	10. Ch 10: Passport to Hell

Passport to Hell

I was quickly getting bored of this new daily regime. Ever since they had boarded the Ark they had been sailing endlessly on this completely expressionless ocean…sky…whatever it was. Truly, I had expected more from the realm of the dead. The ship itself was nothing special either. Charon had led through the 'woods' in utter silence, other than barking sharp instructions not to stray off. He seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. Though it was hard whether the bear or the man had the eyes. I found this very curious. The man that carried Charon around had never spoken a word, barely even moved.

The ship had been moored at a dock that could have been ripped straight from some backwater alley in Alaska. The ship was, to everybody's surprise, an old-fashioned steamboat. Upon arrival, Charon had turned around and seemed to gloat at the confusion on their faces.

"What, you people were expecting some old-fashioned piece of crap? A galleon, maybe? A Chinese Junk? Some supernatural craziness? And I bet you were expecting me to row you people there myself, ey?"

Charon, in direct defiance to the fact that he had no internal organs save for fluff and dust bunnies, hocked up an admirably large mouthful of saliva and spat disdainfully upon the ground.

"What, you greedy little mites think I'd try that hard? For you? I use this ship because of personal preferences. I don't have to row it, but I also don't have to worry about all these high-tech new-fangled contraptions, like _computers _or _Gee Pee Ess_. Whatever that is."

A boardwalk had then conveniently fallen from the sky and landed with a resounding, flat smack in front of the crowd. Charon had forced them all to make orderly columns and march onto the ship. Any stragglers, including the babies, were forced to sing "Waltzing Matilda" 5 times for every second wasted.

"Come on, work that jaw! You don't get paid by the hour, here! You! There! Slacker! Drop down and give me twenty!!!"

The small baby whom had been commanded to give twenty push-ups gazed up, baffled.

When, finally, everybody was onboard, Charon skipped the usual speech about safety and bathrooms that most captains seem so fond of these days, and, so to speak, pressed the big red button. The ship had immediately accelerated to full speed within a matter of seconds, throwing several people off their feet. This proved especially hazardous on the second floor of the ship, where a very fat man who had evidently died of cardiac arrest had fallen on the landing pad that was his large rump and rolled aft, taking out several people with him. Charon looked on, shaking his head with what was either purest disgust, or otherwise barely suppressed laughter.

I had no doubt that had the victims still been alive, this trip pinned underneath Walrus Boy would have snuffed them out quicker than a bullet.

Once on the open ocean, there was almost nothing at all to see. They trawled endlessly through the cloud seas. Charon seemed to choose directions completely randomly. There was, of course, the occasional scare when a skeleton seagull landed upon someone's head, but that quickly got old. Other than the occasional order, wisecrack, grunt, or scornful laugh, Charon remained utterly aloof of his crew. So, for that matter, did I. I had no wish to meet any past victims, or any other deceased I had been familiar with. I spent much of my time leaning over the railing, gazing at the odd letter that had apparently jumped into my hands from nowhere. I had considered drawing a face on it and having a staring contest, but first I couldn't find a pen. And besides, I got the nagging feeling that such a thing would be considered desecration. I had tried to open the envelope, but could find no way. It could not be torn, ripped, crushed, burned, etc. It was during one of these moody, silent conferences with my letter that Charon snuck up behind me.

"What's that you got there?"

I turned sharply, grasping for a weapon. There was only the railing. Charon caught the wild motion and seemed to be laughing on the inside.

"I've heard about you, Mr. Torto. You've made quite a name for yourself down under."

"I do not fear Hell."

"Hell is the least of your worries. Besides, you've probably got the judging system all wrong. A person's path from here is usually determined by an average of two factors. One, how much good you've done to the universe at large."

"Say what?"

"I was just getting to that. Sheesh, you newlydeads really get me down with all your nagging and impatience. It's a good thing you go through 'housebreaking' on Earth, or else you'd probably all be dead. Not all gods and demons have as much patience as me, see."

I gave a derisive snort. I couldn't help myself.

Charon narrowed his eyes, and I could have sworn he had stolen a quick glance at the letter before he continued as if nothing had happened. Curious.

"Every action, every thought, every change has huge repercussions on the universe. You've heard the phrase 'You reap what you sow?' It's not entirely true. Every action caused by every person affects everyone else. Think about it. There's you affecting the universe, and then there's the universe affecting the universe. Obviously, the majority wins when it comes to effects."

I gave my little snort again, but didn't argue. It was true, after all. For now.

"The second factor is how much good you've done to yourself."

"Meaning, how much self-esteem a person has?"

"Pretty much. How much self-esteem, self-respect, all that…but also restraint. Indulge too much, give in to every little urge, and you're not doing yourself a speck of good. You're body is an instrument of the soul and mind. Treat it with respect. Every good worker takes care of their instrument. Craftsmen keep all their tools cleaned and in line. Guns have to be cleaned and inspected regularly, too. Musical instruments have to be polished and tightened. So basically, if you're correctly responsible for yourself, then you deserve it."

"You reap what you sow."

"Yeah, in that case that little phrase holds. Take Common, here. If not for me, he would have rotted away a long time ago."

Charon gestured to the man in the zoot suit, who nodded mechanically. I looked from the bear to the man, and then raised my eyes questioningly. Charon seemed to think for awhile, then obliged an answer.

"He's my little brother."

I raised an eyebrow, but lapsed into a respectful silence. Charon lingered for a moment, apparently pondering something. A few minutes passed before he went on.

"The seal on your letter…you don't know what it is, do you."

It was a statement, not a question, and I nodded cautiously, not to say 'of course, I haven't the slightest idea,' but to say 'What's it to you? Explain yourself.'

"It's an invitation from a chief deity. You don't see those in the hands of newlydeads very often."

That explained his interest in me of all the newlydeads.

Charon tilted his head thoughtfully. "I'm under strict orders to take any letter-keepers to their respective locations as deemed by the letter. Of course, you'll have to wait until everyone else is off."

"So you'll just drop schedule afterwards and take me there."

Charon grunted. "I don't have a choice."

"So, who is this Deity who has called upon me?"

Charon glanced at the seal again. If I hadn't known better, I could have sworn that I saw a spark of nervousness, a dark apprehension in his eyes.

"You'll see soon enough. Suffice to say, you'll probably wish you hadn't met him once he's through with you. He's an expert on pain and suffering. He can answer a lot of your questions.

I smiled. "I'm something of an expert on that subject myself."

Charon nodded. "I've heard all about your sadistic exploits. But it'll take more than that to please this guy. Most of them just jump into the ocean and drown themselves."

I frowned. "How can they drown themselves if they're already dead?"

"Heh, that what's so special about this ocean. Surely you noticed how still and boring it is? Most of the beings here give it a wide berth. They avoid it like the plague. This particular path to the afterlife is quicker than most, but a little more dangerous."

Charon scratched his head, as if thinking, before he continued. "There are six majour rivers that connect at different intersections, leading towards the afterlife. All the rivers begin with Styx."

I shook my head. "You call this a river? More like an enormous bloody ocean."

Charon rolled his glassy eyes…I think. "Whatever. So it's a river in concept and use, then, if not in physical Earthman details. Besides, right now we've gone off on a different branch. We're currently sailing on the river Lethe. Each river is imbued with a certain essence, a power, if you will. Lethe is the River of Forgetfulness, of Lies. Any who fall in the river forget themselves, their memories, their identities, everything. And down here, in the underworld, with no bodies and only spirits and souls, identity is everything. You lose that, you're nothing. Less than nothing. Nothing implies a state of being. You're more like…nonexistence. An utter negation of use and energy."

I whistled, impressed. "The implications of that are enormous. The waters of the river would be invaluable for torture purposes."

Charon shook his head vigorously. "Don't mess with the rivers. They are power incarnate. Larger than you'll ever be, so to speak. You mess with them, you mess with the universe. And like I've said. In the universe, majority wins."

Charon turned…or rather, Common lowered him, and then turned and strode away. As they were turning a corner, Charon threw back over his shoulder:

"If you know what's good for you, you'll do as you're told and not stir up too much trouble. Here, where everything is spirit, things are affected more strongly."

I smiled. I understood completely. The body was a shield against power, both from within and without. Without the meaty cage, we were free…all was power, and power caused pain. This was what I had lived for. This was what I had died for.

Charon had said that I shouldn't try to go against the majority. He knew nothing. In my new world, the power would go to the individual. The Truth would be found, the Heart of Darkness harnessed and subjugated. My power would be Absolute, and the pain Absolute Power would cause the universe would be as nothing ever heard of before.

I gazed at my letter, wondering at the odd seal.

Perhaps this mysterious entity could help me in my quest for power.

If he was ally, I would use him, then dispose of him.

If he was enemy…the same.

Here, in the Land of the Dead, the only thing that mattered was Power, anyway.


	11. Ch 11: The Other Power

The Other Power

Gwendylyn stormed about, in a foul mood. He didn't remember the last time he had gone so long without tormenting something. His sadistic side was beginning to salivate for a new victim. But he knew enough not to give in to his urges. After all, he was dead, surrounded by dead, on a ship headed towards the land of the dead, with his entire situation uncertain, and his safety riding on the words of a stuffed bear, his keeper, and a large, rusty steamboat. These were not ideal circumstances to indulge in temptations. He usually kept to himself, away from the others, up on deck and aft. He enjoyed the wake left behind by the ship. He had seen plenty of wakes on Earth, of course, but those were of the watery type. The swirls and eddies and miniature waves in the clouds were something new, and they fascinated him. It was as if the Gods were waging war, tearing the fabric of reality asunder, the sky howling in pain as its bones were broken and its flesh parted as butter before a chainsaw.

Well, there was one thing to look forward to. Something that was undoubtedly testament to his individual power, his destiny of domination: He had been told by Charon that while the rest of the newlydeads were to go their respective locations, based on the 'average of two factors,' Gwendylyn's letter allowed him passage to a different location. Charon had explained that newlydeads didn't often come into possession of these summonses. Gwendylyn had felt excitement and apprehension blossom in his hollow, warming the hate and stirring it, not unlike a thick stew.

"Am I the only one on the ship to possess one of these letters?" He had asked.

"Of course! These are quite rare." Charon had responded.

Yet Gwendylyn couldn't shake off the feeling that Charon had answered a little too quickly, as if caught off guard. Searching the teddy bear's eyes, he could have sworn he had seen something like alarm, discomfort, and even…excitement?

He hadn't asked much more of it after that, and Charon had not elaborated. But Gwendylyn knew that Charon wasn't being entirely honest. Gwendylyn smiled. At least he had caused one person on the ship some small suffering.

Gwendylyn closed his eyes and delved into his Hollow. Here, in solitude, with the roiling clouds beneath him, he had been training himself to control his Hollow. He had become quite good at it. He slipped into a meditative state, entering his Core with almost a stately elegance compared to his first attempt, on the shore, during Charon's first speech. That first time, he had had little control, barging through the barrier that separated him from his Heart, crashing in with all the couthness and subtlety of a rhino. Now, he slipped under the door, like a dagger with insectile legs, crawling beneath. He unfolded the metal blade, taking flight within the space of his Hollow, like a cave. He was still flying blind, however. Upon discovery, his Hate would drive him out with unprecedented ferocity.

The Self-Righteous Rage Gwendylyn had felt that first time, that had allowed him to tear the Hate apart like a tissue, had retreated to a dark corner of his mind, and try as he might he could not find it. His Hollow might have been a cave, but his mind was more like a labyrinth, and to navigate it took a special concentration that he was not quite capable of yet.

Gwendylyn gritted his teeth. Once he broke through, once he harnessed the forbidden power locked, coded within himself, ingrained into his very being, then he would master his full potential. Rage and Hate both he would shackle to his will, and Absolute Power would bring about Ultimate Suffering.

He wondered about the Deity who had summoned him. What power had he? How did he use it, for what purpose? Was he ally or enemy? Could he be controlled? Killed? Was it even a he? It could plausibly be female, of course, but that was irrelevant. Gender did not matter, it was the power. Perception of gender, of course, controlled perception of power. But Gwendylyn would go unblinded. He would have to gaze at all things with a sort of sharp detachment. Unfettered by common, _majority _prejudices. He would stand alone, in the middle of the chaos, and be the hollow that brought power and reality together. Only be subjugating himself to doses of truth would he find the Last Truth. The First Truth. The Ultimate Truth that bound the Universe like a chain. And once he found that chain, he would break it, and the power released would be enough to become the God of a new Universe.

Here, in the Land of the Dead, the only thing that mattered was Power, anyway.


	12. Ch 12: The World Ahead, with Lobsters

The World Ahead (+Lobsters)

Gwendylyn watched as the newlydeads left the ship in orderly lines, like ants returning to their hive. The shock of being dead had, by now, mostly worn off, and the dead chatted to each other in a lively, jovial manner. Of course, there were still a few hardcore people who clung to life, and would probably eventually just give up and return to become ghosts, and have a merry little time haunting houses and scaring small children and giving pet dogs and elderly folks alike heart attacks. But for now, all the spirits were united in this leg of their journey towards the Afterlife.

They had docked a short time ago in a bay that looked like it had been carved by a descending asteroid, and then bombed until one side had collapsed, allowing access to an enormous black bowl filled with Spunkis. This was the name Gwendylyn had chosen for the odd cloud-water substance that the ship sailed on. Spunkis. It wasn't the best name, but hey, neither was Gwendylyn.

Charon was leading the newlydeads along the coast and through the rocky footlands of the crater, where, at the mouth of a great cave, he would turn them over to another psychopomp by the name of Anubis, a rather odd looking man with a jackal's head who could stand so still that you'd think he had been carved from the rock. Gwendylyn was sure he was a natural at staring contests. Spelunking through the caves, crawling through caverns, and fording across subterranean lakes, the newlydeads would be guided through the mountains by Anubis. Upon exiting, they would be escorted to the elevators by a band of Valkyries, who were mostly ceremonial these days, as there weren't many raiders on the other side of the mountain, so close to the elevators.

Gwendylyn had initially been confused when Charon had explained the journey to him.

"Elevators?" He had thus spluttered.

"Of course. There used to be stairs and tunnels and portals and all of this other nonsense, but that got a little too confusing, and some of the newlydeads were misled to different areas, and then we'd have to send search parties after them. Each to his own, right? Then they got this real tall guy name Sandalphon to supervise them, and he'd just grab the newlydeads and chuck them towards the right portal. But of course, there are plenty of ethical issues about that. Now we just use elevators automated according to each newlydead's location. It's simpler that way."

"But where'd you get the elevators?"

"We built them, duh. What do you think we do with all the dead engineers and architects? Anyway, these particular elevators were designed by some dead guy named Archimedes. Weird dude. He grew himself an afro."

"I find that hard to imagine."

"Yeah? Well, welcome to the Afterlife."

"So where do the elevators take them, specifically?"

"To different lobbies all over the place. Each lobby has a head of staff who judges the newlydeads. Some people wanted to computerize the whole process, but we keep the courts for tradition's sake. From there, if all goes well for the newlydeads, Ophans, wheel-shaped spirits, fly them towards either Heaven or Hell, for lack of a better word. We don't actually call them that, but you get the general idea."

"What do you mean, if all goes well?"

"Well, sometimes the votes even out, and the newlydeads are just sent back to 'purgatory.' "

"And where is that?"

"Here. This entire area is purgatory. Some other elder spirits assign the newlydeads different tasks depending on what they did in life. Do well enough, and they send you on a final test quest. Assuming you survive in shipshape, you're free. They give you a ticket and you take a train straight to your respective location."

"So there is really a God and Satan, and all that?"

"Of course. All or most religions are actually talking about the same things. Doesn't matter whether you call them God and Satan, angels and demons, Heaven and Hell, they're all just the same places different people have tried to describe. Of course, you humans always get details wrong, but whatever."

"What if the newlydeads revolt, or at least don't go where they're expected to?"

"We have a police force of sorts here."

"And ghosts? What's the policy on them?"

"Ghosts are left to their own. No police, no psychiatrists, nothing. A ghost stays in the human world because they want to, consciously or not. It's their personal problem, their soul, their identity, their past life, and so even if we wanted to help them there's not much we can do with a clear conscience. They can be encouraged, of course, but they have to learn to make the journey themselves. We all do."

"And so once everyone's off the boat, you'll take me to whoever sent this letter?"

"Yup. The dead can wait. That's why we organize the newlydead into those droves of boats, and put them to sleep. Keeps them in stasis, helps us manage the flow."

"But the universe is infinite: surely you could figure something else out? Something simpler and more effective?"

"Hey, look, the universe may be infinite, but you humans have a habit of messing stuff up. And besides, Heaven, Hell, and purgatory aren't the whole universe. There's all kinds of unexplored territories out there."

"You mean God can't control the universe?"

"God exists just as people expect him to. He is a manifestation of all that has been hoped and all that people are hoping. People can't perceive the infinite nature of the universe, so they can't properly perceive God."

"That doesn't make much sense."

"What does?"

And so, once the newlydeads had gone into the caves and Charon returned to the ship, the engines had started, the ship did a full twisting backflip, and they had sped off down the river from whence they had come.

Gwendylyn, curious what rivers they would take, went up to the navigation room.

"Hey, Charon, what's our route?"

Charon pulled down a map from its slot in the wall and spread it across the table. The map was very old, written in green ink on a yellowed piece of parchment that had grown leathery soft with age, and was stained with what looked and smelled suspiciously like barbecue sauce.

Charon traced the route as he spoke.

"We'll be taking the river Lethe all the way back to its crossing with Styx. Then we take Styx until it branches onto Acheron, the River of Sorrow. Acheron in turn intersects with Phlegethon, the River of Fire. Your destination is along Phlegethons' banks."

"What about that other river you spoke of, Cocytus?"

"Ugh…Cocytus isn't actually a river. It's a lake on top of a mountain. Very dangerous place."

"Why?"

"There are a lot of small towns in and around the lake, and every single one of them is chockfull of beggars, thieves, assassins, and all sorts of underworld types. All those dead Mafia bosses? Yakuza? Snakehead? That place is like their nesting ground. They're far too powerful."

"Why don't you guys send some angels to take them down?"

"I don't think you understood how deeply rooted those guys are. And it's not just recent crime organizations, either. You've got cults, syndicates, and secret societies all the way from the Ice Age, all of them festering around that lake. And they're always growing. We've got sort of an uneasy truth with them."

"But they _are_ all human, correct?"

"Of course not! The dead around here are from all ages of the world!!! You ever heard of UFOs?"

"Charon, I'm an American. From _California_. Of course."

"Well, most of them are phoney, but some of them are caused by the ancestors of humans. There's all kinds of supernatural mish mash going on in the world that are either directly or indirectly caused by elder races of all kinds."

"Where are they?"

"On different planets, mostly. But there are still some that stay on Earth, either high above, in the clouds, or deep beneath the surface. Some of them even live in plain sight, masquerading as humans. And there's a huge colony of them in and under Antarctica."

"Are they behind all the mysterious disappearances throughout history?"

"Some of them. Plenty of them live underwater, on the bottom of the ocean, where no human's truly gone in thousands of years. Their power is, by human standards, godlike."

"Then why don't they take Earth for themselves?"

"To each, his own. As above, so below. They understand these principles, because each race has reached its civilization's peak in the past. They've made all of humanity's mistakes before. They aren't stupid."

The ship had been traveling for quite some time. The journey was rather uneventful. Acheron had, obviously, been a very sad place, and a deep melancholy had permeated the air, like the smell of fetid meat. You could taste the sadness at the back of your tongue, viscous, like rancid strawberry jam.

Phlegethon, however, was stunning.

A river of pure fire, an enormous plain of blazing white, as far as the eye could see. The white wavered not with waves of the kind Gwendylyn had seen previously, but due to the immense heat. Gwendylyn was sure that had he still had a body, he would have been burned to ashes and potato chip rinds. The flames cradled the ship, licked its sides, swelled up and down, fingers of the inferno reaching up to grasp the railing, bursts of fire suddenly blossoming from below. The eternal flames held an awesome power rarely felt on Earth, as if all the thunderstorms in the world returned here to die, and to breed new storms, a power everlasting, born from lightning and sound. The sky, once a tranquil ocean of fey patterns, was a mass of roiling waves. Cyclones were visible in the distance, sucking up both water and fire, the two elemental forces meeting in an enormous clash of fog and roaring mist. Bolts of flame periodically flew from Phlegethon to strike the ocean above, sending lengths of fluorescent bubbles swarming through the deep before being crushed by the glowing black waters.

"Try not to fall in," Charon had warned mockingly "Not even a spirit could withstand those currents."

The voyage was no longer quiet and comforting. It was a fight to stay on deck, as both sea of infernos and sky of storms sought to claim the ship as its prize. Even Charon, with his experience immemorial, was hard pressed to keep the ship on course, his cotton damp with sweat. Common, his carrier, was as always, silent and impassive, oblivious to the raging tempests.

At times it would rain bright drops of flame from the sky, and Gwendylyn was forced indoors. He was quite glad the ship was fireproof. The flames descending upon them were like fallen stars, the tears of the galaxy dripping ceaselessly down the face of the sky.

Of course, the ship wasn't lobster-proof, and thus when the prickly crustaceans began to fall upon the deck like stones from a pail, they could do nothing but sit behind locked doors and pray that the shelled invaders would eventually ascend to a better place, where pigs flew like marshmallows.

They had been traveling for perhaps 6 Earth days, it was hard to tell, when against the blazing light, a shape moved, just barely. It had been silhouetted against the white backdrop, but Gwendylyn, who had been on watch up in the crow's nest, sighted the sharp shape as a blaze of lightning had brightened the surrounding flame, darkening the object for but an instant. He had immediately gone to alert Charon. Common strided awkwardly up on deck, wading through the agitated lobsters, with Charon grasped tightly in his upraised arms, as the stuffed bear cast his alert eyes towards the strange shape. Charon's eyes seemed to briefly flash transparent, and worry wrinkled his brow.

"Follow me."

Together, they rushed into the navigation room, kicking lobster left and right, while their brethren hissed with discomfort, where Charon had flipped open a panel next to the wall compass, entered a code, and pressed the compass. The circular device sank into the metal bulkhead, and the entire wall had opened like a flower to reveal a lit room filled entirely with weapons of all sorts, lining the walls as if waiting for someone to shower them in blood, gleaming in the light with a brooding sort of eagerness.

Gwendylyn turned to Charon, a questioning look on his face. What was the strange object approaching them?

Charon sighed, shaking his head, and uttered one word.

"Pirates."


	13. Ch 13: S I X T H M O U N T A I N

SIXTH MOUNTAIN

RED looked out the window at the house inside. He'd been meaning to replace the window, but he couldn't find his paintbrush. Not that he didn't never have one. It sang away when he was 274 years old. But that was -896 years ago. Since then, Earth had been created, and we all knew what that meant. All the spirits had gone to theirs head, and now the sun hadn't fried him a filet of pie. He couldn't blame it, though. What municipality repays in fishcakes the lackings of society? Anyway, his job was not so bad. A little stale, could use salt, but the Romans didn't have it either, and pity them, the fools!

RED was paid in picnic baskets. They made him happy. But now he just standed in front of a monitor and buttons he pressed when told. He liked walking the images on the screen. There was some meaning hidden in there, but he couldn't find it. He noticed on one of the monitors that a small child was being killed with a paperclip. Oh, how sweet! He thought to himself. What love! What fervor! What devotion to a cause! He didn't know what the cause was, but there was one, was there not? He was trying to find it, but it was hidden in there. His fingers were dirty.

The door exploded. TWIST came through. He looked sadgry. He sounded like it too.

"You haven't reposed the enviously gerbil amuck? Is it too great a sabre to harbour?"

RED rolled his elbow.

"I superinfer the Danube when speak Adriatic to undermeasure the cherries."

TWIST was apopleptic.

"Oversate the bleachability of intoxicatively overstriving perorative subextensibility!!!"

Suddenly, one of the monitors beeped. A red light pulsed from the ceiling. The door fragments reformed back into the door frame. The screen showed a familiar ship sailing on what looked like a river of fire. Oh! Like the tongue of a Pangolin! Thought RED. Oh! Crumbs to eat are never there when hungry as the sun is Santa! Thought TWIST. The ship was deserted. Except for two small peoples. They were very small. Too large. Jumbo large? I hate shrimp. All seafoods, actually. I give them gas.

1 2 ships were closing in on the large ship. The 1 2 ships were teeming with exactly 712 men. They waved shiny bits of metal and shouted in a funny language. One was drinking from a large green bottle. On the large ship was a funny old man holding a teddy bear holding a jar. There was also a funny man with a sad-looking face, wearing a bath robe. A funny icon appeared over his head. Like a white halo, but not.

TWIST pointed at the jar-holder

"Gaze! That overlinger Charon unharked des Hadaway! Drived! Lemon Bunches!"

Another icon appeared on the screen. It was smaller, but immediately recognizable. RED pushed the talk button.

"Aneuch!"

RED was scared. TWIST was confused, but trying not to show it. FIG floated down from the ceiling, giving his advice.

"Eleuin!"

With no further words he flew out the window.

RED sat back and relaxed. FIG to the rescue! He thought. TWIST cuffed him on the head with the Empire State Building.

The camera probe that had been flying over the Ark slowly about turned, its little rotors giving a sound like "Whezzle! Whezzle!" A truly obnoxious sound. Flying away, the camera was suddenly struck by lightning and destroyed. A monitor died. Melted plastic fell into the Phlegethon for consumption of the lobsters. And all the while Charon and Gwendylyn stood at the bow, gazing at the coming ships. Threats floated on the wind to them, shouted words that seemed to lose energy along the way, as if the Phlegethon inspired fear on the words themselves. The voices not struck down by lightning came fragmented across the surface of the fires, dropping flatly upon the deck. Gwendylyn thought of a place where the voices and last words of dead people went, an elephant graveyard of final pleas, where the memories and epitaphs of entire lives traveled without fail, without exception. There they were frozen by the temperatures, delicate upon the frosty ground like snowflakes. And when shattered, the voice came screaming out of them, and you could just hear them above the biting wind, a wind with fangs and insidious voices that begged you to sleep among the drifts and add your last words to theirs. A testament to never be retrieved. And if ever the eternal winter was defrosted, the air would fill with the words of the long dead, and the entire world would drown in the sound of suffering.

_A screaming planet…__rasping__ under the weight of its own dust_

Why was it so familiar? Was it a book? A dream? A forgotten memory?

_A crying child…his words are not frozen, for there are none_

An old fable? He remembered whispers, his mother's, crooning stories to him.

_A dying sun…its light kicks out one last time, escaping the womb of Death_

Gwendylyn doubled over, his Hollow burning, the memory clawing at its cage.

_An immortal winter…unable to die under time, unable to live under fire_

A flare of lightning struck the surface of Phlegethon just ahead. Waves of fire.

_A pair of survivors…weeping for their loss, tearing out their eyes, for what is there to see?_

Gwendylyn felt the pain in his Hollow, rearing its head and bellowing victory.

_A black ocean…mired and marred by the ashes of a world, who needs you now?_

The rot of winter decayed his insides, the disease of the Hate, a cancerous growth.

_A white ring…gleaming at the world's bottom, whos__e__ love did you destroy?_

There was a fog. He remembered that. A fog and a decayed world.

_One boy…laughing at the floating carcasse of earth, sinks into the flesh of the world_

The fog was black. Black like the sky. Like the sun.

_His seed…rising__from the mud as a pillar of salt, a flame in his hand._

There was only Hate. The Hate was laughing. He loved the fog.

_All is silence. They are the only sound of the planet._

Alone

_Alone_

**Alone**

**The light erupts from the Hollow beneath Earth's core. **

An enormous lobster rose from the depths of Phlegethon. The pirates screamed.

_You died that day_

I had no choice

**I survived**

SEVENTH MOUNTAIN


	14. Ch 14: So, What Now?

So, What Now?

When he came to, Gwendylyn was struck by an odd sort of stillness.

_It is winter, and the fire is being stoked. The air is still, and the men are getting restless._

No, that's ridiculous. He was dead, wasn't he?

_The bleeding had stopped, frozen by the frost. Now__ there was only endless waiting. _

It's not just that, he thought. He was lying on something. Harsh red light danced a frenetic rhythm on his eyelids, drilling through to the tender spots of his pupils.

_The ground begins to shake, and a wind slices through their ears. The bleeding starts again._

Ha! That was it! The ground _wasn't _shaking. Not shaking? That could only mean one thing. The ship had stopped moving. What was the only reason Charon would stop? They must have reached their destination.

No, he thought, frowning. That's not all that's wrong. But he couldn't draw it out: his thoughts were sluggish, like putting a rock in a sausage grinder. Damn! Why couldn't he pinpoint it? There was a weird throbbing in his temples…oh…

It was at that moment that Gwendylyn realized that he was upside-down.

Now this was truly odd. Now, getting his bearings, he realized that he was strung up by his ankles, suspended over a fire. That would explain the light. And the heat. But it didn't explain the gurgling, murmuring noises.

Casting his eyes around, Gwendylyn noticed that a few feet away from the fire, to his right, Charon and Common lay sprawled upon the floor. Sleeping? No. They looked drunk. Or drugged. Same diff, really. Charon was drooling what looked like tar, and Common appeared to be whispering in Swahili. Now this was strangest of all. Truly, Charon and Common would never do this to themselves. Or perhaps they would: this whole Death thing was still somewhat odd to Gwendylyn. Perhaps the pirates had done it? That would also explain the macabre situation he was in. Who else would find reason to suspend him over a waiting nest of flames?

Gwendylyn closed his eyes, using his ears. He could detect no sound, save for the sizzle of fire, both of the flames beneath him and those of the Phlegethon. Surely, were there pirates about, he would hear the footsteps, laughing, talking, drinking? Unless underworld pirates didn't do these things. Or perhaps they had simply looted the ship and left. In which case, Gwendylyn concluded, he was royally screwed.

Gwendylyn once again looked about, and noticed that the ship had docked on what looked like a grassy knoll on the edge of the Phlegethon. Strange: A fertile green stretch of land, right next to a river of fire? The fresh, lively grass started right at the edge of the flames, with no separation, as if one flowed from the other. It seemed they had passed the hotspots of the river, for instead of strikes of lightning and geysers of fire, there was only a placid, shimmering, white-red ooze, docile as a sleeping kitten. Further on, however, there was what looked to be the ribs of an enormous beast.

But no…what seemed to be bone was timber and iron, and what seemed to be baggy flesh were torn sails. And what seemed to be an enormous lobster eating the wreckage…well…that was just an enormous lobster eating the wreckage. Apparently, the great shell-clad beast had decided the pirate ships would make nice snacks. Truly a magnificent specimen it was. The fires had toughened its white shell, so that the plates resembled less the chitin that is the preferred dinner garb of Earth lobsters and more the iridescent confidence of diamonds. The enormous crustacean tucked into the ships with a gusto one might expect from a cow eating a chicken (yes, this happens sometimes).

The beast disengaged its jaws from the meal and glanced in Gwendylyn's direction. It curled its disturbingly human face into a smile and showcased its curved teeth, nostrils flaring, as it waved a genial claw at the Arks' general area before returning to the bliss of pulped timber, salted with the blood of dead men.

Gwendylyn could respect that.

But now, how to escape? His hands were tied at a very uncomfortable angle behind his back. He shouted and bellowed at Charon and Common until he was sure his lungs had turned blue, but to no avail. The pair kept on drooling and speaking Swahili, respectively, with no lull in their activities. They looked so happy.

Gwendylyn knew he couldn't just wait: who would save him? The two brothers wouldn't awaken for quite some time, and he daresay the lobster would as soon eat him as help him. Besides, he was starting to get a little singed, and surely the rope couldn't hold for much longer?

As if on cue, a small snap clanged through the simmering air, and Gwendylyn felt the tension of the rope drop just a hairsbreadth. Well, there's karma for you. Out of all the ropes in the world, the forces most high deem to give you that one that happens to be so ill-suited for facilitating escape.

Gwendylyn attempted an upside-down sit-up, curling around so that he could rip at the rope with his teeth, but alas! The undefined amount of time hung by this rope had sapped his strength, and his abdominal muscles and spine hissed and popped like the fire, managing only a little flop. Even this small movement made the rope swing and creak dangerously. Damn! Ah well, he had never been that good with knots anyway.

Perfect. Here he was, dead, about to be in much pain…wait…could fire still hurt dead people? Gwendylyn didn't want to chance it. He could only lie there, unable to move, while sweat formed on his brow and dripped dejectedly into the hungry flames below. Sore, roasting, bored, and helpless, Gwendylyn gnashed his teeth in rage. It was exactly this sort of situation he hated the most! And to add to his list of misfortunes, something was digging into his wrist. Not the rope. Something harder, sharper…

But of course! His watch! He had made it himself: very sturdy, made out of the highest grade materials he could find (or steal). The edges were rather sharp, and he had added two plates of studded steel on either side of the wristband, for aesthetic purposes. But with a little adjustment…

Gwendylyn altered the angle of his wrists, wincing as the hamstrings in his arms twinged, until he could rub at the rope with his watch. Bit by bit, fibre by fibre, minute by agonizing minute, he wore down the rope until finally he was able to snap his hands free. Perfect! Now for his feet…

Gwendylyn studied the deck, worked out a few quick mental scenarios, then began to swing back and forth, using both head and hands to gain momentum. The rope cackled in protest, twisted threads snapping and fraying. Regardless, he kept on at it. Partially hog tied as he had been, and weak from inverted blood flow, he had been unable to do so before, but with his arms under control now, he swung like a frantic pendulum escaping from the sands of time. Back and forth, back and forth, while the twin crackles of rope and fire assailed him from both sides until…SNAP

Gwendylyn flew through the air, off to the side of the fire, whirling over the limp bodies of Charon and Common before landing with a resounding _**schmuglheblumphchp **_on a large pile of…grass?

Gwendylyn quickly scrambled onto his knees, his feet still bound, to find himself off the ship, several hundred feet away , on the green, green shores of Phlegethon. Looking up, he saw the ambiguous sky above the river shimmer and coalesce into familiar blue and white heavens as it passed above the grass. At the dividing point between shore and river, the two skies met in a bizarre chaos of distortions and meaningless lines and angles.

Gwendylyn shrugged. Just another one of those things, he supposed. What could you expect, in the Land of the Dead? He quickly freed his feet and stood up, casting new eyes around this lush landscape.

There was a large, upside-down tower off into the distance, balancing its crooked body and large block of a foundation upon the very point of a very dirty TV antenna, rising into the blue skies like a middle finger, respectfully flipping off all logic and physics-approved explanations.

Gwendylyn, with grace and extreme dignity, returned the gesture with both hands before making his way towards the tower. He was hungry. Maybe they'd have peanut butter.


End file.
